Build migrant and worker solidarity against capitalist exploitation and war! IMA Statement for International Labor Day 2018

The International Migrants Alliance (IMA) hails all migrant and local workers around the world as they come together, build and strengthen solidarity for just wages, employment and workers’ rights protection, and collectively call for a world without imperialist exploitation and war.

As repression against workers heightens in many parts of the world, the IMA does not only bear witness but contributes to establishing and fortifying links between trade unions and migrant workers’ organizations to champion their rights and build collective strength. In recent years, many of IMA’s members have initiated trade union-migrant dialogues to bridge understanding between migrant and local workers’ conditions, explore the possibility of recruiting migrants to union (which is already being practiced in some countries), and frustrate reactionary governments’ divide-and-rule tactics.

Now, more than ever, migrant workers need to aggressively arouse, organize and mobilize themselves, link up with local unions and other solidarity groups, and engage in local to international arenas to advance workers’ rights, welfare and dignity.

Imperialism is intensifying its war against workers – by revising labor laws that water down workers’ rights and pull down already subhuman wages while favoring big business, continuing to exclude certain migrant workers’ groups from labor laws while perpetuating racism and discrimination, and threatening and actually supporting proxy wars that destroy communities, kill people, and displace thousands of peoples from their homes, places of work and motherlands.

As governments of migrant-destination countries are challenged to recognize and respect migrant workers’ rights and implement laws to realize this, migrant-sending governments should also remain accountable to its citizens who work abroad. No migrant worker’s source of livelihood, dignity or even life should be placed in danger at any possible circumstance.

The IMA calls on all members to further intensify our struggle and contribute to a global movement that shall end forced migration. Let us look forward to and work for a world where families are not broken up by the need to survive.